India Hayford

India Hayford is a Wyoming naturalist and writer. Her debut novel, The Song of the Blue Bottle Tree, was named a 2025 Arkansas Gem by the Arkansas Center for the Book as well as a Publisher’s Marketplace BuzzBooks selection the same year. Her second novel, Days of Sun and Shadow, will be released by Kensington Publishing Corporation on June 30, 2026. A short story collection, Howl, won the 2023 Neltje Blanchan Memorial Writing Award for best work inspired by nature. Her articles on natural history and fiber art have appeared in multiple periodicals, including Wyoming Wildlife, Threads Magazine, and Needle Arts Magazine. She has written two books on embroidery and for nine years produced The Howl, a quarterly wildlife newsletter. Born in Arkansas where her family settled in the 1830s, she has lived in the liminal space between mountains and sagebrush steppe for almost half a century. India is writing a third novel and doing research for a fourth.